Kalvin Phillips is possibly the presence Leeds United miss more than any other when he is out of the team.
The defensive midfielder has become such a linchpin for Marcelo Bielsa’s Whites, there are none who seem to be able to do that job as well as him.
That role is the safety net for the whole tactic. Everyone else is so mobile, so quick, so attacking, Phillips needs to stay where he is, sitting and reading the game, snuffing out danger.
Adam Forshaw is the nearest natural replacement for Phillips if he is injured or suspended, but even when he was fit last season, it’s hard to say he wasn’t better used further forward.
Ben White took on the mantle this season and even though we saw vast improvements from him in the latter part of the campaign, he too failed to look anywhere near as convincing.
Besides, if White were to return to Elland Road, like Forshaw, we would say he is better employed elsewhere in the side.
Aside from hundreds of millions of pounds, a trophy and promotion to the biggest football league in the world, one of the major results for United from the restart was the emergence of Pascal Struijk.
A centre-back by trade, the Ajax youth product arrived at Thorp Arch in January 2018 and slotted into Carlos Corberan’s under-23 side.
Playing in the centre or at left-back, Struijk ticked along in the Premier League Professional Development League Group North while team-mates came and went.
Paudie O’Connor went into the first team and departed, Hugo Diaz went into the first team and departed, Aapo Halme went into the first team and departed.
Eventually, Struijk found himself as the senior member of the reserves, playing with Oliver Casey and Charlie Cresswell in defence, in the main.
Others were catching Bielsa’s eye and as Struijk hit his 20s, you began to think perhaps he would be next on the chopping block out of Thorp Arch.
Even Casey, one year his junior and with far less under-23 experience, got his senior debut before the Belgian-born defender.
Struijk was eventually blooded late in the 2-0 win over Hull City last December, four days before he came on a touch earlier against Cardiff City, but played his own part in Robert Glatzel’s late equaliser.
Away he went, back to the under-23s and Corberan, who was in the process of using Casey more and more as his team’s defensive midfielder. Struijk continued in defence.
Something changed during lockdown, however.
“To be honest, Pascal, since he came back from lockdown, has been brilliant,” Patrick Bamford told us after the Barnsley win.
“We were doing murderball sessions and he was on the opposite team, he was playing in that holding midfield role and, I’m not joking you, I was getting absolutely screamed at by the manager because he was just getting the ball every time and I couldn’t get anywhere near him.
“The back two and him were just passing it around me. I was losing my head because I was just chasing after him and he was literally controlling the whole session.
“The manager was shouting at me and I was thinking ‘I can’t get near him’. He has been good since he came back and, naturally, he’s been a centre-back.
“That’s the only position we’ve ever seen him in until we came back after lockdown and he’s done really well.
“He’s earned his chance and, to be honest, he did all right when he came on. He didn’t put a foot wrong.”
Struijk kicked on too. He played all 180 minutes in the subsequent wins over Derby County and Charlton Athletic, without any pressure on him, of course.
Struijk seems to have the full package as Phillips’s understudy. He has the height to win the high balls forward, the strength to boss tackles, the technical ability to get himself out of trouble and the vision to pick those defence-splitting passes forward.
The point is, cover for Phillips was looking like a problem going into the Premier League era. Whether you believe Forshaw is best in that role or not, he’s coming back from major hip surgery and a long time away from action.
White is not guaranteed to return and Bielsa’s next port of call may have been Stuart Dallas, who was run ragged in that role against the Tykes, or Alfie McCalmont, another of Bielsa’s long-term projects.
One of the few transfers Victor Orta wants to make this summer may have had to be spent on an understudy for Phillips before Struijk took his chance.
Of course, the 20-year-old will not count his chickens after coming through a dead rubber with Derby and a win over League One-bound Charlton, but the building blocks are there.
That’s now a role, a hole, Orta does not need to fill. That is money which can be spent elsewhere in the team. Struijk may prove to be the find of the restart for the Whites.
